Space Invaders and I share a birthday

FRISpace Invaders and I share a birthday and what a blessing. I keep looking for signs from the universe, that my calling was from outer space. And there’s the proof.

I don’t wish to seem like a conspiracy theorist, but April 1978 was an intense time in popular culture, and that’s when my soul got its flying orders from the universe. The TV series Dallas started, and my mom would get hooked to the ranch that enthralled a trillion households with nothing much except a whole lotta back-biting caucasians. 

And then Space Invaders was invented, and revolutionised fun times with a game of skill that could go on and on until your luck ran out. Apparently that was a thing. Well it wasn’t the first, because Space Invaders was in fact based vaguely on the old pinball machine that also played along until you lost the ball. That was a crisis, but nothing compared to the lives you were losing virtually in Space Invaders, in a perpetual state of war. 

For Pinball you got chrome balls and flippers around cowboys or sky rockets; with Space Invaders you got three lives. And plenty of disgusting aliens. With Pinball you lost when the balls fell to the bottom of the machine. Meanwhile with Space Invaders you lost when the invaders reach the bottom of the screen. The aliens came on hard and fast, trying to destroy the player's cannon by firing projectiles. And that was the crisis that gave most boys stress beyond their years.

I was too small to appreciate it first hand, but I have followed up the story with fascination. Because a lot of the time it feels like my life is taking place decades before now. And anyway, anyone who me, knows that the humble pinball machine is my spirit animal.

The Nagoya attack was the final row, also known as the Wall of Death. I think we’re all headed there, but hopefully we can build enough resilience to confront our own subconscious aliens — things from the outside that keep creeping in.